In the U.S. it is possible to copyright a specific visual representation of a concept, not the concept itself. In what may be a precedent setting decision in the Patents County Court in London His honour Judge Birss QC has decided that a concept, or visual technique can also be copyrighted.
If you want to license rights to a picture of Big Ben and the houses of Parliament shot from Westminister bridge that may be illegal. You can probably take such a picture for your personal use, but be careful about trying to license its use in the UK. Take a look at these
two shots and see if you think the second infringes the copyright of the first.
After the judgment, photographic copyright expert Charles Swan, a lawyer at Swan Turton, said “The judgement should be studied by anyone imitating an existing photograph or commissioning a photograph based on a similar photograph.”
Jane Lambert - a barrister specialising in intellectual property law – concluded in a blog post, (http://nipclaw.blogspot.com/2012/01/copyright-in-photographs-temple-island.html) “although I follow the logic I feel very uneasy at Judge Birss's decision in Temple Island. It seems to come very close to protecting copyright in an idea as opposed to expression.”
See Amateur Photographer magazine’s
complete report on the case and the court’s full judgment
here.